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PR is hard. And expensive. Most of the time, you get nothing out of it. And when your company finally is mentioned in an article, even in a big publication, the results can be disappointing. Like that time when we got a whooping 169 visitors after getting into ZDNet.

Over the past two years, I’ve made a lot of PR mistakes. I’ve also got Bitrix24 into Forbes, VentureBeat, ReadWrite, PCWorld, PCMag, TechRepublic, CIO, ITWorld and 200+ other tech publications. I’ve learned that what you do with the article AFTER it’s published is frequently a lot more important than what do you before. And I am happy to share my insights with you.

1. Pay for LinkedIn Inmail.

LinkedIn Inmail is the cheapest and most effective way to pitch journalists. My account cost me $100 a month and at least 50% of all mentions of Bitrix24 in the press are results of LinkedIn pitches. The most amazing thing about LinkedIn is that once you find one or two journalists, their network will actually show you who else to contact –editors in the same or other publications. It saves you a lot of time. Also with Inmail the results are guaranteed, you pay only for those messages that got read by their recipients.

Ideas are worthless unless implemented. To make the most of those creative brains on your small team, you can’t have a brainstorming session and leave it at that. You need to have a system in place to manage ideas from the initial burst of insight to complete execution.

The Three Stages of Idea Management There are three essential stages in idea management:Stage 1: Capture/Input Stage 2: Feedback/Analysis Stage 3: Decision/ActionAll three stages are necessary. With a smaller team, you can move more quickly from one to another, but you still need to work in the right order to manage ideas effectively.

Stage 1: Effective Collection The best ideas are often the ones that sound a little crazy. Sadly, those are the ideas we are most likely to reject because they sound, well, a little crazy. It’s important to create a truly open space where all of the ideas can come out and introduce themselves. Welcome all ideas equally in order to keep getting a lot of ideas. Quantity produces quality; let your team members know that all of their ideas are welcome. The more the better. It’s a lot like panning for gold: you have to sift through a good bit of silt to find that nugget.

Cornelius Fichtner is a PMP, CSM and noted project management expert. Since 2005 he has interviewed over 150 project managers from around the world on The Project Management Podcast, with topics covering all areas of project management like methodologies, PMOs, earned value, project leadership, Agile, certifications and many more. The interviews are available for free at www.pm-podcast.com . We asked Cornelius to share his insights on what's currently going on with project management.

Project management world has been radically changing with socialization and consumerization trends. Asana grew out of Facebook in a way and is catering to that very same audience. Bitrix24 is popular in PM community because it combines project management with social collaboration. Trello monetizes through stickers, and so on. What do you make of this trend and what does it mean for 'old school' solutions, like Basecamp or MS Projects?

This trend can mean only one thing: The 'old school' tools like Basecamp and MS Project will start developing and integrating social collaboration in their offerings. In fact, we have to say that they will add "even more social collaboration into their tools" because these companies have seen the trend and have responded by adding social features for some time now. Asana, Bitrix and Trello on the other hand were developed with the social crowd in mind. It is at their core. But they are the newcomers in the field of project management and collaboration software. And they do not (yet) have the large customer and user base that many of the "old school" tools have. So the question really shouldn't be "what does the trend for social collaboration mean for the 'old school' tools", but instead the question has to be "Will the newcomers have enough 'staying power' once everyone is offering social features in their project management software"?

Is email dead? The answer is still being debated. But one thing is certain: While ESNs (enterprise social networks) are probably not going to completely eradicate email usage, they are fast changing the way people in the workplace communicate, share ideas and collaborate. Here are three ways ESNs are better than email:

1. ESNs increase work efficiency and foster better knowledge sharing.

If you’ve experienced working for a company without a knowledge management system in place, email may sometimes work like this: If John needs information he thinks Ellen has, he emails her, to which Ellen replies – if John types in the correct email address and the email doesn’t get trapped in the spam filter, that is. If Ellen unfortunately doesn’t have the information he needs, John sends an email blast to his department’s distribution list. If nobody in the list can help John, he emails another department. If that department can’t offer anything helpful, on and on goes the quest for the missing information. In the event one of John’s emails finally finds its way into the responsible person’s inbox, there’s no guarantee that John will get an immediate response, particularly if the said recipient still needs to weed through 3,108 emails that include invitations from lunch buddies and discussions about the most recent Game of Thrones episode that are in no way tied to work. (Yes, email abuse does happen.) The scenario may seem a little extreme, if not depressing, but it’s not too far removed from reality, either. One good thing about enterprise social networks is that threaded conversations are visible to participants, and people who can’t directly help can tag or invite those they think can, quickly finding the experts and making knowledge sharing more effective. Plus, any time the same question or issue crops up, discussions are archived for review.

Calendar management is an essential skill for productive teams. Are your team members using their calendars effectively?

Create a Single Access Point Multiple calendars make it easy to overlook events and deadlines. A single access point helps you to see everything you have ahead. Seeing all of your responsibilities, events, projects, due dates, and scheduled activities in one place enables you to avoid the dangerous practice of overbooking yourself. If you have multiple calendars for family, personal life, team projects, and your work schedule, do what it takes to get them all funneled into one, single-access place so you can see the big picture.

Over the past 20 years, Keith Burton has been the leading industry practitioner in employee communication and change management. As partner at Brunswick Group, Keith leads a global group of counselors within The Interpublic Group of Companies (IPG) who are focused exclusively on improving organizational performance by building employee trust, improving internal communication and affecting overall change at many of the world’s leading corporations. We talked to Keith about what internal communications professionals can do to improve employee engagement and collaboration inside their companies.

Let’s start with the beginning – employee onboarding. What resources should internal communication and HR specialists make available to new hires in order to speed up onboarding process?

We see that simple things like replacing emails with group chat or private social network can significantly increase team productivity. What other simple, cheap and quick to implement things can companies do to receive immediate and noticeable productivity boost?

Neen James is a high energy, Aussie leadership expert focused on productivity who delivers engaging programs that have educated, and entertained audiences with real-world strategies that apply in all roles at work and home. The author of Folding Time™ and Secrets of Super Productivity, Neen also provides one-on-one mentoring to leaders. We talked to Neen about team productivity strategies that work.

We see that simple things like replacing emails with group chat or private social network can significantly increase team productivity. What other simple, cheap and quick to implement things can companies do to receive immediate and noticeable productivity boost?

Use the phone no one does that anymore! A phone call can save multiple emails and meetings. Leverage social media tools and text messaging. It keeps conversations short and targeted.

So you are planning to launch a company intranet or want to replace your fossilized SharePoint portal. There are more than 30 intranet vendors to choose from and you are lost. After all, intranets aren't cheap and you don't want to make a mistake. Don’t worry, this intranet evaluation checklist will help narrow down your intranet choices to only the best solutions:

1. Cloud AND self-hosted.

You ONLY want solution that gives you these two choices and most vendors do. Cloud-based intranet services are usually very inexpensive and require no involvement from intranet developers who charge a pretty penny. That’s a plus. However, cloud intranets have few customization options and some, like Yammer, are known to have regular and prolonged outages. You want to have an option to migrate to cloud (if your intranet budget is slashed) or go from cloud to server (if you need customization or for compliance in your industry) any time you want to. Stay away from vendors wh ere you have only one choice.

Over the last year, the Bitrix24 cloud service has seen rapid growth in its use as an engine for small business. Monthly sign-ups are an order of magnitude higher in 2014 than they were in 2013, and Bitrix24 is being adopted in an amazing number of countries throughout the world.

Among the factors that have greatly influence the spread of Bitrix24 are the Bitrix Partners. Many companies have started using the Bitrix24 collaboration platform without assistance, but there are many more companies who need consulting or even a complete introduction to the benefits of doing File sharing,Tasks, Project management, CRM, Chat, and Calendars among other things in a unified workspace. These partners are helping businesses, especially small businesses, by making Bitrix24 more accessible and easier to adopt in their regions.

Buzz Intranet in the UK has been a steady partner for more than two years and is our oldest partner working in the cloud. Our newest, CloudXchange, works in the Australia and New Zealand markets. We have YouNetin Southeast Asia, and Brazil is covered admirably by Quantium. Look for Portuguese to be added as an interface language in the future. French, too! We have partners popping up throughout the USA and Canada, too.

Many of our partners have a background in CRM or social collaboration. The work of a partner can include proof of concept-that is, demonstrating that Bitrix24 meets your business needs; configuration and training in the CRM; setting up workflows so that your CRM, documents, and lists all conform to your standard procedures with approvals, notifications, and automatic tasking. Some partners can develop specialized apps for you. If you have a specific need that can only be met using the Bitrix24 API, a Bitrix Partner can help you make it happen. Partners can also help you migrate from the cloud to the on-premise version of Bitrix24.

Cold calling, despite being disliked, is still a powerful way to generate new leads and sometimes the only option your inside sales team has. Today we talked to two cold calling experts Kelly Robertson of RobertsonTrainingGroup and Michael Halper of SalesScripter.com about typical cold calling mistakes and how to avoid them.

What is the biggest mistake or mistakes people do when they first trycold calls?

MH: Trying to sell the product on the cold call. A cold call should only last between 2 to 5. This is not enough time to fully sell the product (unless it is very transactional – one call close type of sale). With that the goal, and thing to close, should be the appointment to discuss more. The initial sell is to sell the prospect on having a conversation.

For a business to be profitable, you need customers. Customers start from leads, and leads can come to you either through word of mouth or as a response to advertising. They can also find you through the search engines – that is, if you’re doing SEO (search engine optimization) right. That said, here are five things you can do to generate more incoming leads:

1. Start a company blog

Gone are the days when weblogs were synonymous to personal online journals. These days, companies are positioning blogs as an online marketing strategy, no matter how un-sexy the thought of regular posting may be. By starting a company blog, your website ceases to become just an online brochure with product/service information, contact details, and such. Blogging gives your company a voice, an opportunity to be seen as an industry expert by providing your target audience with the educational information they need to make an informed purchasing decision. It also allows you to answer pressing industry questions and engage your clients and prospects in healthy conversation. If readers find your inputs helpful and insightful, your blog posts can get shared and your brand introduced to new readers you can potentially turn into leads.

Josiane Feigon is a pioneer, maverick, and visionary in the inside sales community. She is the founder of TeleSmart Communications and the author of Smart Sales Manager and Smart Selling on the Phone and Online. We caught up with her to discuss what's been going on with the inside sales industry and asked her to share a few tips about building a successful inside sales team.

What are some of the typical mistakes that companies do when they decide to create inside sales department or team for the first time?

They don't take a stand on inside sales. They only bring in a few people (under three) and give them tons of responsibility and basically set them up to fail. When leadership teams understand the power and potential of inside sales, they invest more in the headcount, the tools and their management.